1) Ah Beng came over my house today.
2) Ah Beng never came over my house today.
In different contexts, each statement can be true. But on a given day when Ah Beng did came over to my
house, to say that he never came would be a false statement. And yet, except for the single word (ie. "never") , every other word in the sentence is “accurate”. You could say that it is 87 percent (7/8 ie. seven out of eight words is) accurate, but it is still completely false in its context!
The bottom line is we have to use our
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And here is a report from TMI: http://tinyurl.com/83m7afv
Excerpts:
" “No, I’m not aware,” Najib told reporters after the Barisan Nasional (BN) supreme council meeting..."
"Another source confirmed the investigation into the national oil company, saying the MACC has informed Najib and his deputy Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin..."
So, two contradicting statements. Whom to believe?
Do we believe the one with power? Or do we believe the unnamed source, the one who has less 'power'?
To someone who has no 'experience' of the many things our politicians said and done (or rather 'not done') or "said one thing but do another" ie. 'flip-flop', s/he would have no idea if what was said was true or false. For all that matters, it may be true that the PM could be telling the truth. For all that matters, it may also be true that the anonymous source could be telling the truth too. It all depends on whom one believe in.
But the problem is one's beliefs is always subjective.
To someone who has 'experience', someone who knows the true nature of a certain person, then it is not so difficult to discern if what they're saying is not a lie. It could be a lie but we're not absolutely certain of it. It could be the truth but we are not certain of it either.
So how do we solve this?
We now take a different approach. We take the context of what both were saying to get to the truth, or falsity of the matter. The real context that should concern us is "there is graft in Petronas". This is a serious issue. For if there is rampant corruption, as stated by "industry sources" in the report, wouldn't that mean there is serious leakage of public funds too as a large part of Petronas' revenue is used to fund the government?
So should we still concern ourselves with whether the powers that be is telling the truth that s/he is not aware of the corruption happening in our state oil company or should we be more concern that there is rampant corruption within the company itself that could cause more of our public funds being siphoned off? And what did it say to us if someone who is in charge of the said institution "is not aware" of the happenings inside there?
The truth that should really concern us is, if there is serious corruption in a major institution of the country, then what is the implication that other public institutions will not be subjected to corruption too? And so, persons elected to look after the people's interest foremost are always 'not aware' of what is happening?
